Im mostly retired from the forums, because the communication between BHG/Nexon and the community became so poor. But, I still can't help but feel it is a real travesty for the game that sandbagging was never fixed. Dominations is still the only game Ive ever played, where the best strategy for alli vs alli competition is to bring undeveloped, mostly alt accounts to war to manipulate the matchup, rather than be rewarded for fighting peers.
The worst part about it, beyond the countless posts by developers on how they want to improve matchmaking and fix sandbagging (all can be looked back at as one big joke now), is that this will only become even worse with the Cold War Age about to be released.
Consider a 20v20 war, one team bringing 4 alt level 10 iron ages and 16 real players. The other team decides to bring their best, most prepared, 20 real players.
In the industrial age, bringing 4x lvl10 iron ages combined with 16 lvl110 industrials lowered the average level by 20 for the sandbagging team. A 20 level *average* advantage over your opponent is pretty significant.
In the global age, bringing 4x lvl10 iron ages combined with 16 lvl170 globals lowered the average level by 32 for the sandbagging team. A 32 level *average* advantage over your opponent became nearly impossible to overcome, although teams could still shoot for stalemates.
In the atomic age, bringing 4x lvl10 iron ages combined with 16 lvl230 atomics lowered the average level by 44 for the sandbagging team. A 44 level *average* advantage over your opponent is insurmountable. Timed tiebreakers encourage sandbagging even more, because with a 20-45 level advantage over your opponent, you dont have to spend money on cards as much to be able to compete. The few iron ages that can be cleared quickly for time, simply dont matter when there are crazy matches where one team has 10-15 stronger bases than the opposing teams top 2-3. Its easy to sandbag your way to tiebreaker prevention.
Coming up next, the cold war age. Perhaps a level 290 average for a heavy CWA team? Bringing 4x lvl10 iron ages combined with 16 lvl290 cold war bases will lower the average level by 56 for the sandbagging team.
You can switch up the average levels, change the equation some....but the reality is, the higher the "war weight ceiling", the more of an influence bringing iron age/undeveloped early age accounts will have on matchmaking.
There have been so many ideas from the community. My favorite remains just not counting the bottom 20% of a roster in the matchmaking equation (there arent too many rational arguments to bring your classical age "friends" to a war dominated by atomics anyways, what kind of experience would that be for a newer player?). But, if you dont like that, there are other great ideas like giving each base 2 defenses (worth up to 10 points), restricting the age range for wars, or many other choices. Literally anything would be better than the current state.
When the #1 strategy for wars is to bring undeveloped accounts to war, and the #2 strategy is to buy elephants or sentry towers....well...its not very good for the game.